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It’s called Prepperfest, which might bring to mind folks planning for the apocalypse, which
might bring to mind middle-aged men with beards, overalls and a shaky grip on reality.

Weirdos? Shut-ins? Conspiracy theorists?

This was not the scene at today’s Columbus Prepperfest inside the Northland Performing Arts
Center. The three-day event, the first for its organizers, concluded after more than 600 people
walked through the door to learn about the preparedness lifestyle and to buy freeze-dried food and
home-defense systems.

Very few wore overalls. Many didn’t have beards. Some even wore sparkly earrings and carried
fancy purses.

One couple, Jason and Jamie Schenk of Centerburg, looked like a pair of lovebirds at a concert.
He slung an arm around her as they listened to a lecture about the morals of survival. (Don’t steal
your neighbor’s car six days after a society-ending event, survival expert Bob Gaskin told the
audience. It’s just not right. Wait at least a month.)

Afterward, the Schenks said the first thing they bought for their home was a generator,
something that didn’t sound extreme at all.

“Just to be prepared in general is smart,” said Jamie Schenk, 34.

Prepperfest Columbus — which, it must be said, was about 20 percent gun show — began as Gene
Stacy’s lunchtime conversation about how there were plenty of gun shows out there, but few expos
that addressed government shutdowns or natural disasters.

“People have to kind of rely on themselves,” said Stacy, a Groveport resident. So why not teach
them how?

Stacy’s son, John Stacy, helped put together a roster of speakers and a cluster of vendors who
sold everything from freeze-dried chocolate ice cream (good for some 30 years, if you’ve got that
kind of restraint) to ornate handmade furniture with secret gun compartments.

“It’s about being prepared for whatever happens,” John Stacy said, referring to events such as
the ice storm that knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of Columbus residents a decade ago. “
It’s not about the end of the world.”

At vendor Kris Moore’s table, it was about door alarms and flashlight stun guns and shaving
cream cans that disguise valuables. Oh, and jewelry. After selling more than she expected, Moore, a
Columbus retiree who only recently got into the self-defense business, added some shiny baubles to
cover the empty space.

“I guess I’m the oddball,” she said.

But there were no oddballs at Prepperfest, just a bunch of normal-seeming people who don’t want
to be caught without drinking water, medication or food in the event of a disaster.

OK, maybe there was one guy, who dodged and hurried away as soon as a reporter identified
herself.